


Some Nights I Think

by RoboRad



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Trowa was a lonely little boy, sap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 05:25:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10379502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoboRad/pseuds/RoboRad
Summary: Late at night Trowa Barton remembers the nameless soldier he used to be and the moment that changed that hopeless soldier forever. 3x4. Looking back. Retelling of Quatre and Trowa meeting in Ep. 3. One-shot.





	

Some nights, when only the regulated ticking of my watch and the sigh of breath beside me can be heard, I think about who I used to be. Under the warmth of our comforter I remember the young mercenary boy. That child who killed his youth in order to survive. So he could face the never-ending war.

            I think of how he grew up earning everything he ever had. How he knew that being in someone’s debt was as good as being dead. And that being alone, completely alone, was safer, even preferable to relationships. I dwell on the memory of nights washed with nightmares and no one to protect that poor, nameless boy from his own feelings. No one who knew him as a child, not a soldier.

            Other nights I think of the events that led to me become part of Operation Meteor. Of the real Trowa Barton, who had no idea he was fighting a war for his life. I remember how innocuously he had shown me that picture of his niece, expecting some kind of bond to form between us, not knowing I had no sentiments to offer in return. He at least expected me to be a person, with a family and ambitions. And in return I took his position, his mission, and his name.

            Periodically, I think of Heavyarms. How I built that awe-inspiring machine. How it felt to have victory snug in my palm when I sat in her cockpit. How the fear of death seemed almost silly inside that body of gundanium. I was a master over fear. Untouchable and alone. Knowing the day I met an opponent worthy of fear was the day I died.

            Usually, I think of the circus. I think fondly on how it had been the perfect cover for my mission. I had steady income and yet remained constantly on the move so as to avoid being tracked down. My co-workers understood my desire for anonymity and solitude and my work kept me in top physical condition. I was lucky the owner saw a homeless teenager willing to take up another mask for the sake of survival. I was very lucky.

            But ultimately I always end up at the memory of the day I met Quatre and how that strange, unlikely start marked the beginning of the end for the nameless boy. In the dark I clearly see Quatre, young and brash and so hopeful, standing outside Sandrock’s cockpit. I know there is an army behind him, but all I see is that young man, a child really, asking me for the first time in my life to be still. Pleading with me to stop being a soldier. Imploring me not to fear him. Begging me to lay down my mask. Praying for me to abandon all my covers so he could find some treasure in me. Something precious I’d thought to have killed long ago.

            And I remember wishing it was a soldier’s logic, or survival instinct, or even fear that made me surrender, but it wasn’t. It was the desperate call of his beautiful soul ringing out for another that made me obey. Made me cast my shields aside and face his light bare and without knowing what was left.

And he saw it, the naked, hopeless me, and he smiled.

And deep within, where all those nightmares pressed against my scarred soul the nameless boy fell in love.


End file.
